


Pater Familias

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Family Feels, Family Issues, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson Friendship, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 07:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6509098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pater Familias - Latin, term to describe the father/patriarch of a Roman household</p><p>Matt Murdock has had three father figures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. They Say the Future is Our Enemy, Time Will Eventually Set the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Work has been absolutely insane the past few weeks and I have not had the time nor emotional fortitude to watch Daredevil season 2...so I'm coping via writing feelsy fanfiction? I dunno, I don't make sense. Please no spoilers, though. I've seen enough by accident already (damn you internet, *shakes tiny fist to no avail*), I don't want to be completely ruined by the time I finally have enough time to watch it...
> 
> Also, fyi, the backgrounds I've created for these characters (specifically Jack and Ed) are my own headcanon based on what we see/hear in show canon. As Foggy's family isn't shown in the show as far as I know, I basically took the knowledge that Foggy's dad owned a hardware store, Foggy's knowledge of home repair and extrapolated from there to build my image of Ed. I used a similar process when building Jack's character (I have so many Jack-related headcanons and feelings and I just really love his character).

**Jack Murdock**

            It wasn’t going to work.

            Jonathon ‘Jack’ Murdock was not a stupid man. He may only have a high school diploma and a pair of bloody fists to his name, but he was not a stupid man. And when he shelled out a few hundred dollars for Braille textbooks (all his winnings from his last fight and oh god, the hospital bills and fuck, what were they gonna eat for dinner this week – damn it all to hell, but that little boy deserved better than _this_ ) he knew the clock had started.

            It was like a function, the algebra of his life. How long could the line he was on continue before it intersected with reality and they were all fucked because the world was a cruel, cruel place, even if he didn’t want to believe it, even if he didn’t want Matty to know it.

            That boy deserved better than this. He deserved a dad who could be home from the office every night at five o’clock sharp, he deserved a dad who could buy him every single book he needed or wanted, no matter the cost, because Matthew Murdock was so damn smart and he _deserved_ to go to college, and get all the degrees in the world, enough to build him a bridge of paper out of this hellhole.

            Jack wanted so much for his son. Everything, anything.

            And here he was in the grocery aisle, doing mathematical gymnastics to decide if they could afford another package of hotdogs this week.

            Braille textbooks were expensive.

            The church had paid for part of the hospital bill. But when he’d come back, asking for cash for books, for clothes that didn’t make Matty try to scratch his skin red and angry, they’d looked at him like he was ungrateful.

            _“God helps those who help themselves, Mr. Murdock. We think the church has been more than generous. There are many needy families in Hell’s Kitchen…”_

            And Jack had hung his head like a good little beaten dog and slunk back to their apartment to take the sink apart one more time, hoping to stop the leak without having to buy a new part or three.

            Jack’s best subject in school had been math. He wasn’t so good at English, words didn’t fit together easily for him. He didn’t like talking much. Words felt clumsy and slow in his mouth, like foam stopping up his jaws. He didn’t know how to talk to people. (Ma never talked to him much if she could help it, one of his first memories was her side-eyeing him suspiciously, knuckles tight on a wooden spoon as she stirred a pot of something on the stove, the spoon restless and clattering, ready to snap out and smack him away from something he wasn’t allowed to touch, and he didn’t know when exactly it was or if it had happened a hundred times and he was just remembering every instance as one general moment. Either way, there weren’t a lot of words, just suspicious stares down at his young eyes, and an emptiness in the air where his father was supposed to be.).

            But numbers were easy. Clean, simple. When Matty was little and there was a new emptiness to the air (where Matty’s mother should have been, promised to be…but that wasn’t really important anymore, old wounds, old news), Jack knew he needed to talk to him. Needed to make sure he heard a voice, understood words. So no one would taunt the newest Murdock boy for being slow, for being dumb (literally, no words, no words…), so Matty would never need to beat the hatred back with his fists (two things Jack had been good at in school; math and fighting). So Jack counted. Counted everything, the forks in the silverware drawer, the socks as he folded laundry, the hits as his fist connected with the heavy bag. Counting out loud all the time, filling the air with sound, with words. Making up little nonsense equations, (“If we’ve got twelve spoons and ten forks we need to subtract two spoons or add two forks, then we’ll have an equal number of each, Matty,” “Eight socks, divided by two, that’s four pairs of socks, Matty.”).

            But now he was counting and counting and he knew in the end it wasn’t enough to count.

            Average yearly cost of textbooks, plus a few hundred for pleasure reading, plus continued lessons in Braille, plus tutoring (can’t let him fall behind), plus regular doctor’s visits to make sure there weren’t any lingering after-affects from the chemicals, plus, plus, plus.

            Average yearly earnings from fights. Plus. Average yearly earnings from odd jobs.

            Subtract expenses from earnings.

            A negative number.

            And what about when he got too old to fight? He knew the time was coming, would come. He’d turn forty while Matty was in high school. Life wasn’t a Rocky movie. There were no comebacks for old, broken fighters. They stayed old and broken if they weren’t dead or permanently damaged.

            Matty deserved to go to college.

            But to get there… he needed more. More than Jack could give. More than he could carve out of himself.

            Jack beat the heavy bag.

            One. Two. Three.

            One. Two. Three.

            One. Two. Three.

            He did the math on the fight with Creel. If he took the mobsters’ money, if he threw the fight, they’d be good for a year. A whole year.

            If he won…

            Jack was good at math.

            If he put everything on that fight and won…Matty could pay for everything he needed. Until college. He’d be so good at school once he had everything he needed to keep up, to excel, to win. And then there’d be scholarships, and the money would all be in a savings account, inherited years ago, it wouldn’t count as yearly earnings, he’d qualify for so much money from the government and he was so smart, so good at school, he’d get academic scholarships too.

            Jack was good at math.

            The numbers didn’t lie.

            He needed to win that fight. One year was nothing compared to _years._ Compared to a chance.

            Jack didn’t want to die. He knew the risks.

            But.

            The numbers didn’t lie. And this was Matty’s chance. And if it came down to it, Jack would die for that, for giving his son everything he could.          


	2. All We are is Skin and Bone, Trained to Get Along

**Stick**

            _“Make us a soldier,”_ they said and Stick had nodded. Followed orders.

            He worried the stupid paper bracelet between his fingers. He wasn’t cut out for this shit.

            _“Make us a soldier.”_

            Fuck, he could do it too. It’d be so easy. Take the kid’s offer of friendship, loyalty, love. Blind obedience. (Ha, funny, Stick was a regular fucking comedian today, wasn’t he?)

            It would be so easy to twist that all around. A perfect little soldier. Willing to fight, to die, to do anything to make him proud. The brat was so damn vulnerable right now.

            It would be so. Fucking. Easy.

            And so fucking wrong.

            Reducing the kid to _that_? A crime. A goddamned _crime._ The brat wasn’t a soldier, wasn’t anything, really, not yet. But he _could be._ He would be a decent soldier, not too shabby. But that would be taking all that potential and fucking _wasting_ it.

            Soldiers followed orders.

            Warriors were something great, something transcendent.

            This kid, this kid could be a warrior.

            But warriors fought on no one’s terms. Warriors took orders when it suited them. Warriors were loyal to their code and no one else’s. Warriors built themselves.

            Stick tucked the stupid paper bracelet in his pocket.

            _“Make us a soldier.”_

            Not a chance. Twisting the kid around like that, making him utterly dependent on Stick, on orders? A waste. A stupid waste.

            Stick walked away. Time for the kid to grow up. He’d be a warrior someday. Maybe Stick’d come back in a few years, check up on him, see if he’d made any progress.

            But for now, it was time to go, let the kid find his own way.

            _“Not your damn daddy.”_

            Stick grinned to himself, not a smile, not happy, a feral, cruel expression as he ignored whatever feelings might be trying to claw their way out of his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I am not trying to excuse Stick's behavior. He's kind of an emotionally stunted jackass. But really, if he actually wanted Matt to be a blindly (excuse the turn of phrase) loyal little soldier, he would have taken advantage of that moment with the bracelet to emotionally manipulate little Matt into being 100% loyal to Stick and only Stick. And he didn't. Which to me said he had some other plan.   
> So while no, Stick's not a great human being, he's more complex than he's often perceived to be.


	3. And Everyone’s an Angel for Whatever It’s Worth

**Edward Nelson**

            Murdock was good at fixing sinks. Good at fixing things in general. When Foggy first dragged his new roommate home (“you guys’ll love him; just don’t get all weird, he’s not really used to overabundances of affection”) Ed hadn’t been sure. Not sure what to say, how to be. Foggy was one thing, but his school friends were another. All chattering a mile a minute, throwing around words with more syllables than sense, talking about things Ed had never heard of, things he wasn’t sure _existed_ when he was in school (high school, he’d gone straight to work at his dad’s store after and never looked back, never until now, with his kids all so smart, going places he hadn’t thought to dream of, still didn’t, not really, he had a good life here, he was content, happy, and he worried sometimes, worried that his children, so ambitious, so driven, would never reach that point, that point where they looked around and what they saw filled them with contentment, warm and solid.).

            Ed Nelson was a simple man. He liked fixing things. He liked working with his hands, figuring things out by taking them apart piece by piece, in real-time. Not all this hyper-intellectual mumbo-jumbo.

            So yeah, he’d been a little…wary, when Foggy’d insisted on bringing his roommate home for Christmas (“Come on, guys, you should have seen him at Thanksgiving, I came back to the dorm to find he hadn’t left the building in _four days._ He cooked hot dogs in the hot water kettle for Thanksgiving and ate them _alone_. It was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”). Ed wasn’t sure how to talk to another one of these Ivy League kids. Foggy was different, Foggy was the kid who’d ‘helped’ him patch walls when he was five, toddling around slapping putty on every flat surface he could.

            And then Murdock was there, awkward and shuffling and quiet as a mouse, as if he wanted to minimize his impact, to not disrupt the rhythm of the family around him. And it was so damn _sad._ (Ed thought about high school, about another Murdock, a grade or two behind him, with hard eyes and harder fists; that everyone said was dumber than a rock and a devil in a fight. He thought about the way that kid had held himself, tight and balanced, like he was about to jump up and lash out or flee, eternally tense and silent, like he was just waiting, waiting to the other shoe to drop.)

            Well damn.

            And Foggy and Anna were trying to fill the air with their chatter, but Ed could see the nervous jump in Murdock’s hands as they shifted on his cane.

            The sink was dripping. Leaking. Had been for a while.

            “Hey, Murdock, you know how to fix a sink?”

            Big surprised eyes vaguely hidden behind glasses and Foggy groaning good-naturedly in the background, “Ugh, Dad, now is not the time for one of your weird rites-of-passage via home repair.”

            But Murdock looked so profoundly _grateful_. “No. I can learn?”

            “Sure you can, kid, let’s go.”

            And the thing was, Murdock was pretty damn good at home repair. He ran his hands over each component, fingers mapping out the angles and grooves, listening to the hiss-drip of water in the pipes, working with a quiet, intense sort of patience.

            “Not bad, kid, not bad,” Ed patted him on the back and Murdock blinked, a small smile playing at the edges of his face like he wasn’t sure what to do now.

            “Well, the sink isn’t dripping anymore?” he offered and Ed laughed.

            “Nope, it’s not.”

            “Did I pass my ‘weird rite of passage via home repair’?” he quoted wryly and Ed laughed again.

            “With flying colors, kiddo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> True story, the sink at work started leaking all over the place the other day and my boss spent half an hour fighting with it before giving up and going to the store for new parts. He came back 30 minutes later and asked me and the other people on my shift (there were 3 of us) if we wanted to learn how to put a sink back together. And we sat on the floor and learned amateur plumbing. While it wasn't exactly a 'rite of passage via home repair', it was kind of cool.

**Author's Note:**

> I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS.
> 
> If you were wondering, chapter titles are from "I'll Follow You" by John McLaughlin, "Treacherous" by Taylor Swift, and "Hard Days" by Austin Plane.


End file.
